November Rain (and Decemeber, too!)

It rained last Friday and it rained again today. I love it.

I believe my blog has now fallen into the "Boringest Blogs in the World" category, if it ever left that category in the first place. No pictures, no thought-provoking thoughts, just me blabbing. And not even very often. Pitiful.

It is election season, which makes it difficult for me to blog at work (don't tell my boss) and homework is adding up (finals are coming soon) so I don't have a lot of time. I've been busier, but I'm getting old so I can't hack it like I used to. And I just got sick, so anytime I move too fast I feel like my head is caving in. Let's see... anymore lame excuses...??? Nope, that's it.

So much has happened in the last few weeks, I can't fit it all in here. I've sworn off drawing (oh yeah, that's another lame excuse for not blogging) because it takes me too long and then I either get discouraged and quit or I think it's a work of art and drool over it when really it looks like crap. I've finally written out the text for my storybook (by the way, I've been trying to write a storybook) and my original intention was to illustrate it myself but that's gone down the drain. By the time I'm talented enough to do that I'll be 50. Plus, I'm trying to pick up an extra income somewhere (and praying for a promotion!) to recharge our monetary reserves, so I don't have time to practice. I'm looking for someone to illustrate and I think I've found an artist whose style I've really taken a liking to, but I don't know how to get in touch with her. So that's that.

I have started playing the piano again. I try to get a little bit in each day so that I might be able to play the hymns when our regular organist is not at church. My fingers are starting to remember how to jump from key to key without me prodding them too much. It will take awhile but I hope in a year I'll have several songs down. My wife enjoys the background music much more than the click click click of my laptop or the scratch scratch scratch of my pencils on paper so I think I'll stick to this hobby. Mutually beneficial. That's what marriage is all about.

I was talking with my friend on Sunday about "the fire." You know, that massive force deep within your soul that moves you to action, the feeling that something inside you is bursting with light and you can almost see it coming out of your fingertips, the burning desire to be perfect and pure. The feeling that is followed by focused, poignant faith and vision that opens all doors and clears all obstacles in your path. The power that radiates from your eyes, that demands attention and belief from bystanders, that crushes opposition and invites success. The sense that whatever goal you're aiming at has already been accomplished and you just have to go claim it, the result so tangible that you can almost feel it before you even see it. That's the fire. At times, it's all-encompassing and exhausting and absolutely perfect. At other times, it's gone. Like, all gone. That's when depression sets in. We came up with some good stuff on how to get it back, how to rekindle the fire, but you had to be at our joint FHE last week to get it. :) The most important thing is to keep on going and never give in, to not stop dancing just because the music is gone, and to remember that before and after any great moment the opposition will mount almost to the point of collapse (please read this great address from which we find the oft-quoted line "...beware the temptation to retreat from a good thing. If it was right when you prayed about it and trusted it and lived for it, it is right now.").

Thôi, viết tới đây đã dài quá rồi đấy, ngừng nhe. I'm stopping here, this is way too long.